But in the U.S. I cannot just go to shops and buy them like I would in Japan, so that probably makes it even more special now.
I recently met someone, who works at an upscale Japanese restaurant, and she kindly offered teaching me how to make them.
She even brought the main ingredients that are hard to come by, which I was so grateful for.
Adding the lines was challenging.
Mine was far from perfect, but I really enjoyed this experience.
By the say, these are chrysanthemums, seasonally very appropriate.
We also made these.
They are plum flowers, which is usually made during the spring season, but that’s okay because they are still pretty, and I got to practice making something different.
They are made with simple ingredients, but they are delicious.
This time I added a little bit of “Paris” tea leaves, finely ground.
It smelled and tasted heavenly!
But why I decided to bake shortbread biscuits?
The main reason was “Ted Lasso”.
We started watching the show, Ted Lasso, a few weeks ago, and we got hooked!
We’ve been binge-watching since then.
I have a feeling that watching the show makes some people want to get a cold beer out of their fridge, because after all, the characters are mostly either on the soccer field or at a bar!
Me?
No.
Beer doesn’t do it for me.
But the shortbread biscuits?
Yes.
The main character, Ted Lasso, brings shortbread biscuits to his boss every morning, and they look so good!
Every time when I see Rebecca (the boss) has her first bite, I crave for it (lol).
And he brings the biscuits in a cute small pink box just like this.
Don’t laugh.
I made the box myself out of a piece of paper!
You can really find anything on YouTube.
The biscuits fit in the box perfectly!
It was hard to wait for it to cool and ready to be cut.
The cutting part is so satisfying.
Absolutely delicious!
I can definitely start a day with a piece of biscuit like this.
I forgot to post it and then when the summer came, I felt like it was too late to post.
Chocolate and summer just do not seem to go well together.
Technically it’s still summer (in my mind summer does not start until September), but we are almost there, so I decided to post it now (otherwise I am afraid that I will forget about this again).
This was a delicious banana bread.
Okay, we call it “bread”, but it’s definitely should be categorized as a “cake”.
I added the mixture of sunflower seed butter and chocolate to the banana bread batter and created the marble design in the middle and on the top, and then chocolate chips were also put in (both in the middle and the top as well).
The mixture of chocolate and sunflower seed butter tasted like heaven itself!
This was a delicious “bread”!!
Just a perfect snack with a cup of black coffee.
Now it’s getting cooler, so maybe it’s time to make it again.
I had some success with it, but it was not consistent.
I was able to make enough good-enough ones, but it was so frustrating because I did not know what resulted in the good batch or the bad batch.
I read so many guides and forums online for macaron troubleshooting.
But often times, they say something like… the reason this happened is because either the batter was overmixed or undermixed, or the oven temperature was too high or too low…
Can you see why it’s frustrating?
So basically, every process of macaron-making has to be PERFECT, which is, as you know, hard to do (sigh)…
Anyway, these are some of the shells that turned out better than others.
Blueberry buttercream.
Chocolate ganache.
Lemon buttercream.
I love this color combination.
Muted and elegant.
(Actually I wanted one of the colors to be “gray”, and I bought and used “super black” coloring gel. And this is what I got (the blue looking one). It’s still pretty, but it’s definitely not black or gray. I was completely perplexed. )
I put some blueberry syrup to the buttercream, but I thought it would be fun to place syrup and syruped blueberries on top for extra blueberry flavor.
It’s pretty this way, too!
I probably won’t make macarons for a while after this experience.
I need a little break.
But next time I do, I will either go back to the old recipe or try something different, maybe this one ↓.
I had a feeling that this cake was going to be great.
Isn’t it interesting that you use a whole orange, skin, rind, and everything!
I used an organic orange for this.
Wash, cook, and puree it.
Just looking at this already made me excited.
I scraped every bits of the batter off the container and licked the spatula.
If the batter is so good, then the final result should be great, right?
I initially thought of making one big cake, but I decided to go with this mini Bundt pan.
I love this pan, but I don’t have a lot of chances to use it.
The cake turned out great!
I was so relieved that the cake came out of the pan okay.
(I took out the first one too quickly when it was still warm, and it did not come out cleanly. Note to myself: wait until they are cool. I waited for the rest, and they came out fine.)
This cake is so good that you really don’t need anything.
Do not even think about frosting.
Trust me.
You don’t need it.
It has a wonderful texture and great orange flavor.
